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VMware snaps up SpringSource

Virtualisation giant pushes cloud computing development

VMware will acquire SpringSource for approximately $362m in cash and equity

VMware
has announced that it is set to acquire enterprise and web application
development and management outfit
SpringSource.

The definitive agreement will see SpringSource and its lean software
framework become part of VMware's cloud infrastructure strategy, aimed at
helping businesses more efficiently build, run and manage applications within
internal and external cloud architectures.

VMware will acquire the privately held SpringSource for approximately $362m
(£220m) in cash and equity plus the assumption of approximately $58m (£35m) of
unvested stock and options.

Paul Maritz, president and chief executive officer of VMware, said: "Today's
modern computing environments are moving to an application and data-centric
world powered by state of the art virtualised and cloud computing platforms.

"The combination of SpringSource and VMware capitalises on this shift and
places us right at the intersection of the most important forces in the software
market today – virtualisation, modern application frameworks and cloud
computing."

Through its Spring Framework Java development model, SpringSource is the
company behind some of the most popular and fastest growing open source
developer communities, application frameworks, runtimes and management tools and
is a major contributor to the popular Java application server
Apache
Tomcat.

According to VMware, the plan is to merge these technologies into an
integrated Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that can be hosted at customer
datacentres or at cloud service providers.

Much like the cloud platforms offered by the likes of Salesforce and Amazon,
this should then allow developers to quickly build new applications as well as
host virtualised versions of existing applications.

According to a recent study by analyst firm
Forrester
Research, the PaaS market is growing rapidly and is expected to be worth
around $15bn (£9bn) by 2016.

Rod Johnson, chief executive officer of SpringSource, said: "VMware has led
the modernisation of datacentre infrastructures through innovative
virtualisation and cloud architectures, providing customers with cost savings,
agility and choice.

"The SpringSource team and community are committed to revolutionising the way
companies build, run and manage applications. By combining forces, I'm confident
that we'll be able to deliver a set of truly remarkable solutions that
dramatically simplify enterprise IT."

The acquisition has been approved by SpringSource's stockholders and is
expected to close in the third quarter of 2009, subject to customary closing
conditions.